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“History, the Self, & America Now,”—The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known #1933

August 10, 2016

Jeffrey Carduner, Aesthetic Realism consultant, writes:

Read the magnificent and true explanation of big, historic things happening right now in our country. With all one should rightly be concerned about at this time, was Eli Siegel correct in saying that “ethics is a force”? Yes! And it’s told about in “History, the Self, & America Now,” the great new issue of The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known.

The commentary by editor Ellen Reiss begins:

Dear Unknown Friends:

The great lecture by Eli Siegel that we have been serializing—of November 15, 1974—is about the relation between what goes on in the individual self, the mind of each of us, and large happenings in the world. We’ve reached the final section. And what Mr. Siegel explains in it is a means of understanding what’s happening in America right now.

Earlier in the talk he commented on passages from a sociology textbook, including a section on revolution. And in this final section he continues speaking about what revolution is. It may not include such dramatic occurrences as the storming of the Bastille or Winter Palace. Revolution, Mr. Siegel explains, has subtlety, nuance; and it can be a process.

Beginning in 1970, he showed that a revolution was taking place in America, toward having this nation be owned justly. It would go on for some decades, is going on right now. Often it has looked like anything but revolution. However, Mr. Siegel explained, an unjust way of economics, the profit system, has failed and will never recover, and one large reason is that people are deeply against it, and against it with increasing consciousness and intensity. While people may seem to go along with the profit way, they hate being seen and used in terms of how much money their life and labor can supply to some boss or stockholders. “The profit system of America,” Mr. Siegel said, “is trying to go on while individual psychology in America is now against the profit system.” That is a description of revolution.

The idea of revolution as having subtlety, dignity, was present this year in the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign. He said America needed a revolution, and he used the word to mean a big, nonviolent change in behalf of justice. The fact that people were not horrified at the word, but welcomed it, and were also not horrified by his calling himself a democratic socialist, is part of the revolution itself….>> Read more.